Monday, 12 October 2026

It is Canadian Thanksgiving today and I have begun a new painting about something that I do not already know how to do. It is an experiment, not unlike this early painting in my nature-centric, reparative Seafloor series.

Excerpt from Terrill Welch MA Fine Art Journal

Saturday, January 25, 2025

This week on Tuesday, January 21, 2025, I followed through in my commitment to go closer in my sea floor landscape series. I had several reference options and decided on mussels as my subject. I gathered together a few images from my observations, some from as recent as this week. There are hours and hours of pleasurable meanderings and sitting and observing behind this selection that spans a period over the last ten months.

In the end, I decided to pull from this image from the beginning of June as a primary source of inspiration. It is the outside reef along the Strait of Georgia in the Salish Sea at Reef Bay.

I can still feel the sun on my back and the sound of the rhythmic wash of the sea over the mussels that brushes the salty air towards me as I crouch low to the barnacle-covered sandstone.

I decide on a close intimate view and begin to shape it onto a 12 x 10 inch acrylic red ground. 

The darks must go in first on this one. Even then, it will be a challenge to hold them to the end and round the forms while still keeping the life of the work.

The painting is blocked in swiftly on the small canvas.

I settle in painting while moving the easel around the studio, up onto the kitchen area and then around that room several times to stay out of the direct bright low midday winter sunlight. It didn’t seem to matter much. I used the adjustments as visual breaks and kept painting. The whole process from beginning to end took only a couple of hours.

I separate out and frame just the still shiny and wet painting to share to my social media followers along with my artist notes, as is my usual practice.

A significant U.S. art collector of my small paintings inquires and then purchases the painting the next morning. This is her comment that I share with her permission:

I really fell in love with this one.  Even without reading your description, I understood the painting immediately.  Somehow I connect into your spirit so easily and I am thankful for such a gift.

There is no greater honour than having the stewardship of one of my paintings be taken up by an art collector. However, the best and most significant piece of this feedback is knowing that my intention for the work reached through to the viewer.  

I now have the edges painted (and those of five other recent works) while I hustling to get this one ready to ship before February 1st and the risk of a 25% tariff being proposed by the new U.S. administration. 

If this happens, it may possibly be the last painting of mine that is imported for a while. We shall see. Yes, sales are not everything as an artist. That said, I am a full-time independent artist with an art business that brings in revenue for living expenses and my continued education. This does not drive or even particularly influence my creative output… but it does fund it. Thankfully, the last few years have been reasonably good. There are no immediate concerns for now. 

Let’s take one last look at this small study in a digital room view provided by Canvy before it is sent off on an adventure of its own!

Now, I am off to work on my contextual study for the week while painted edges dry.

Yes, this is still one of my least favourite painting task but it does get easier as the years go by.